New Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi on Tuesday said he doesn't see online voting becoming a reality in near future while state funding of elections in the country will first require certain key reforms in the electoral process. "Voting online, technologically is child's play for us. We are an IT superpower. Let's accept that. But we do not see that happening in the near future," Quraishi said at a...
01:04 AM, Apr 18, 2012
New Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi on Friday wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for speeding up long-pending electoral reforms. Sources said the poll panel chief in his letter said that the reforms, including preventing people with criminal backgrounds from contesting elections, should be "expeditiously considered and approved". Although the contents of the letter were not available, official sources said the poll panel had been suggesting steps to...
07:48 PM, Apr 13, 2012
New Delhi: The Election Commision on Wednesday laid stress on strengthening election expenditure monitoring mechanism and asked polls officials to focus on training of its officials in this regard. On the concluding day of the two-day conference of chief electoral officials (CEOs), top EC officials asked the CEOs of states to tighten the election monitoring mechanism and train their officials for ensuring this. The top poll officials were asked to...
04:59 AM, Apr 12, 2012
New Delhi: The biennial election to the two Rajya Sabha seats from Jharkhand, which was countermanded over allegations of use of money-power and horse-trading, will now be held afresh on May 3, the Election Commission announced on Tuesday. The three-member Commission decided the fresh dates in its meeting held on Tuesday and a notification for the same would be issued on April 16, starting the process for filing of nominations....
04:44 PM, Apr 10, 2012
New Delhi: The Election Commission on Monday decided to write to the government seeking a CBI probe into the events that led to countermand of Rajya Sabha elections in Jharkhand recently. The decision comes after the Jharkhand High Court asked the Commission to constitute a probe. Sources in the Commission said a letter was being written to the Department of Personnel and Training for conducting a CBI probe in the...
06:41 PM, Apr 09, 2012
Ranchi: Jharkhand High Court on Thursday ordered a CBI probe into alleged cash dealings in Rajya Sabha elections. One person had filed a petition in the High Court seeking CBI probe. The Jharkhand High Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission (EC) to order an inquiry by a specialised agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into circumstances leading to the countermanding of the Rajya Sabha elections in the...
03:08 PM, Apr 05, 2012
Jamshedpur: Defending itself for voting in favour of a candidate of its coalition partner JMM in the recent Rajya Sabha polls in Jharkhand, the BJP on Sunday said they want an enquiry into the election of Independent candidates to the Upper House from the state. "We will welcome a comprehensive enquiry from any agency including CBI not only into the recent development in the Rajya Sabha poll but also in...
05:10 PM, Apr 01, 2012
New Delhi: Chief Election Commisssioner SY Quraishi has said that he would like to conduct the scrapped Jharkhand Rajya Sabha elections before the Presidential polls. The Jharkhand Rajya Sabha elections were cancelled by the election Commission. The Election Commission on Friday countermanded the Rajya Sabha polls in Jharkhand in the wake of allegations of horse trading and seizure of over Rs 2 crore in cash, saying the election process there...
03:40 PM, Mar 31, 2012
Ranchi: Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) have sought review of the Election Commission's move to recommend to President Pratibha Patil for cancellation of two Rajya Sabha polls held on Friday. Amid reports of horse trading in the Rajya Sabha (RS) polls, the Election Commission (EC) on Friday stopped the counting of votes for two seats from Jharkhand after money was seized from a car belonging to an independent candidate's...
01:15 PM, Mar 31, 2012
New Delhi: The Election Commission has cancelled the Jharkhand Rajya Sabha election. The directive comes after allegations of horse trading and recovery of crores of rupees. The BJP MLAs have come under the scrutiny. After two marathon rounds of meetings, the Election Commission was convinced that there was indeed large-scale horse trading that had taken place. Not the first time Rajya Sabha elections in Jharkhand have always been contentious and...
06:20 AM, Mar 31, 2012
New Delhi: In an uprecedented step, the Election Commission on Friday countermanded the Rajya Sabha polls in Jharkhand in the wake of allegations of horse trading and seizure of over Rs 2 crore in cash, saying the election process there "has been seriously vitiated". "The Commission is satisfied that the current election process for Rajya Sabha election from Jharkhand has been seriously vitiated and cannot be permitted to proceed," the...
12:47 AM, Mar 31, 2012
New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) has cancelled the Jharkhand Rajya Sabha election. The panel on Friday countermanded the polls after rampant horsetrading and recovery of crores of rupees. The income tax department seized over Rs 2 crore from a candidate's car and raided three candidates. "The Commission is satisfied that the current election process for Rajya Sabha election from Jharkhand has been seriously vitiated and cannot be permitted to...
11:38 PM, Mar 30, 2012
New Delhi: The Election Commission has stopped counting of votes in the Rajya Sabha polls in Jharkhand without a written clearance from the poll panel. The directive came after allegations of horsetrading by Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) chief Babulal Marandi. BJP leader Prakash Javadekar said that the party MLAs voted for JMM candidate Sanjeev Kumar in Jharkhand Rajya Sabha polls on the direction of the party leadership. Earlier, the BJP...
03:29 PM, Mar 30, 2012
New Delhi: Jharkhand is all set to conduct its Rajya Sabha polls on Friday amid allegations of horsetrading by Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) chief Babulal Marandi. The election comes at a time when the rift within the the ruling BJP-JMM-Ajsu alliance is said to be widening. The parties are seemingly divided over whose nominee to back. Marandi, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Kodarma in Jharkhand, had written a...
07:28 AM, Mar 30, 2012
Chennai: Voting for the bypoll in Sankarankoil Assembly constituency of Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district came to an end Sunday with around 75 per cent of the voters casting their ballot. The electoral fate of 13 contestants including six independents is now sealed in electronic voting machines (EVM) in the 242 polling booths in the constituency. An Election Commission of India official said around 75 per cent of the 206,087 voters...
06:58 PM, Mar 18, 2012
New Delhi: Delhi's state Election Commission on Thursday decided to allow eunuchs to fight the next month's civic polls as per their status enrolled in the voters' list. The Commission came out with an order, stating that eunuchs, whose sex in the voters' list have been mentioned as "other" will be able to contest from the wards under general category. State Election Commissioner, Rakesh Mehta, rejecting demand of a number...
07:14 PM, Mar 15, 2012
New Delhi: The Election Commission on Thursday made a strong pitch for financial autonomy on the lines granted to constitutional bodies like the Supreme Court and the CAG, saying the dependence on the government could lead to conflict of interest. "We want the budget of the Election Commission to be charged through the Consolidated Fund of India and not voted through Parliament," Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi said while speaking...
05:31 PM, Mar 15, 2012
New Delhi: Amid a flurry of exit polls predicting the outcome of Assembly elections ahead of the March 6 results, Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi on Sunday said such surveys should at best be on entertainment channels. "Opinion and exit polls should at best be on entertainment channels!," Quraishi tweeted this afternoon, taking a dig at the surveys. The reaction of the CEC, who made his Twitter debut on February...
06:43 PM, Mar 04, 2012
New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government on Sunday started uncovering Chief Minister Mayawati's statues in Lucknow. The statues were covered on January 7 upon the Election Commission's orders, after several opposition parties raised a hue and cry about her statues being in the open in poll season. The parties alleged that the BSP would have an unfair advantage in the elections because of them. In Lucknow, nine statues of Mayawati...
10:01 AM, Mar 04, 2012
New Delhi: Manipur will hold its second re-poll on Sunday after the Election Commission ordered repolling in 67 stations of its nine Assembly constituencies amid reports of irregularities in the January 28 polls in the state. Several non-Congress parties had alleged malpractices in the January 28 election and the first re-poll on February 4. Parties, including the BJP, NCP, CPI, CPM, JD-U, MSCP, Manipur Peoples Party, National Peoples Party and...
08:17 AM, Mar 04, 2012
